We humen like to bend rules and be creative.
–
progoApr 19 '13 at 9:54

5

The answer to "should English be consistent in spelling?" is quite different to the answer to "is English consistent in spelling?"...
–
WoobleApr 19 '13 at 11:40

12

Yeah, and since the plural of tooth is teeth, I suppose the plural of booth should have been beeth. And since we say that the teacher taught, we must also say that the preacher praught. That was a light-hearted way of saying the same thing as @progo's comment : We sure like to bend rules and be creative. Words have all sorts of reasons to be in their present form. Nowadays, I hear that people are facebook-ing (keeping in contact through facebook), kik-ing (messaging on kik) and SMS-ing (sending a text message in your mobile phone) each other :-)
–
rktcoolApr 19 '13 at 12:25

8

The British invasion by the Romen was followed up by waves of alien hordes, culminating in the conquest of the Normen.
–
tchristApr 19 '13 at 13:10

16

If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't people from Holland called Holes? :)
–
grepApr 19 '13 at 14:45

This is correct. It is nothing more than a coincidence that these two words happen to use the same set of three letters. (I would merely mention that the Latin name of Germany was Germania, not germani).
–
John M. LandsbergApr 19 '13 at 7:04

Another way of saying it- a man from France is called a Frenchman, and many of them are referred to collectively as FrenchMEN. A man from Germany (we see here with the "y" that "man" is included as a coincidence- you can't take it as "many from Ger" either...) would be called a Germanman and many would be Germanmen. I think they might have said it back in WWII, but I could be wrong.